Actually quite a bit has been going on in the "Writer's Corner" of my life--yes, it only is one corner, not the main thing, which is why it takes me so long to get things accomplished. Two big things:

1) As a follow-up on my November blogpost, over the next few months, I contacted an administrator, several teachers, and various resource people in the school district to learn more about the Common Core Standards and how I might incorporate them into my existing Curriculum Unit for The Orange Slipknot. I ended up cutting some of my original material, rewording much of what remained, adding a few new things, and then inserting numbers to indicate which standard was met by each activity. My goal was to finish this by the end of summer, which I did. The second edition will be a great improvement! (It is not yet available.)

2) My second book, Starting the Colt, is in the works and is slated for release this coming spring! I recently finished editing and proof-reading the "page layout" version, in which the pages on my screen actually look like book pages--kind of exciting to get that visual of the finished product. I was amazed, in my editing, at how many things jumped out at me that needed fixed, clarified, or just improved. There was much less editing needed than in The Orange Slipknot, hopefully because I learned so much about writing from that experience that I did a better job in my initial writing of this one. But my publisher will now do further editing before creating the galleys, so I guess that remains to be seen.

Now that those two biggies are behind me, I have two more biggies to tackle. One involves marketing: Every year I contact all the Nevada fourth grade teachers for whom I can find email addresses (a very time-consuming project) to make them aware of The Orange Slipknot-plus-Curriculum Unit as a great social studies tool. The other involves writing: Now that I'm up to speed on the Common Core Curriculum, I need to craft a CU for Starting the Colt. This should take me much less time and work than the first one did.

One of the purposes of this blog has been to demonstrate what is involved in being a writer. First you write and self-edit the manuscript. Then you must market and sell the manuscript; however, I managed to skip this step with my second book, because my original publisher, Raven Publishing, was interested in my sequel. There is much involved in the publishing process--editing, proof-reading, galleys (preliminary unfinished copies), artwork and cover design, deadlines. Then you market and sell the book, which includes flyers, phone calls, emails, presentations, etc. And yes, blogging. Since I procrastinated so badly on my blogging, I am making up for it by posting twice in one day!

Oh yes, and don't forget websites--finding a host and learning your way around their technology, creating and updating your website, then repairing the things you screw up...which I was just reminded of as I tried to post this. In posting my earlier entry today and updating the link on my "janyoungauthor.com" home page, I found I had accidentally wiped out my entire home page. Instead I had somehow uploaded the wrong home page: the one from "jackyoungclinics.com"! I will admit to a few moments of panic as I tried unsuccessfully to get the right page to come up, until I finally figured out what had happened, and got everything back to normal. Sometimes I love playing with websites, but when things don't go right, well...let's just say the problem is not always fixed this easily!

Publishing a book is exciting stuff, but being a writer is not necessarily glamorous. Discouragement, writer's block, and heavy-duty rewriting are problems I have tackled recently, but things are looking up.

When people ask me when the next book is coming out, I hate admitting that I never worked on it all last school year. I justified my lack of writing by claiming lack of time--instead spending my limited "writing time" on the phone selling The Orange Slipknot. The problem may have been writer's block. Or it may have been plain old laziness and procrastination. I don't want to become a slave to either TOS or the sequel; I don't want them to run my life. Even when school was out, I didn't find time to write; my summer vacation seemed gone almost before it started, between a trip to Australia to do a horsemanship clinic, time to be grandma, riding horses, yard work, and the usual summer projects. But the good news is, I am finally back in the writing mode, and my goal is to finish the sequel this school year.

I started writing the sequel shortly after finishing TOS, about 12 years or so ago. When you finish a manuscript and begin the submission process, it's time to start working on a new project, which I did. I had an idea for a sequel sketched out in a brief synopsis, and managed to write about half the story. Then I got stuck, and, not having even sold the first book yet, I didn't have enough motivation to work through the problem. I put it aside and decided that if I ever sold the first book, THEN I'd return to working on the sequel. What ended up happening was, after about 20 rejection notices on TOS, I practically gave up on writing in general. In the next few years, I got busier job-wise so writing was on the back burner, so to speak. When I finally sold TOS, it was a real challenge to find time in my life for the editing process, and later, for marketing.

I did a little work on the sequel about two years ago, but had trouble getting back into writing on a regular basis. This year I've had a change of schedule; my job as Remediation Tutor has ended. It was grant-funded, and with the state budget shortage, the grant was no longer available. I am back to substitute teaching, which gives me a day off here and there. My plan is to use those non-work days as writing days, and so far, it's working out great. I prefer to write when I have big chunks of time alone, something I just didn't have the past few years.

Before I could write any new material, I needed to reread what I had already written, and work through the part I got stuck on. I studied my synopsis to make sure I remembered where I was going with the plot, then started back at the beginning. It's amazing how much your ideas can change in 12 years--about writing, and about horses, which are at the heart of this story. My husband and I work with horses and our ideas have changed a lot over the years as we continue to improve our horsemanship. I ended up changing much of the horse content to reflect my current ideas. I also realized that one of my subplots was not going to work, so I cut out everything related to that.

Another thing that has changed quite a bit is my understanding of my target audience: middle-grade readers. The last four years I have worked with this age group, and especially with struggling readers. I have a better grasp now of the vocabulary, sentence structure, and pacing that is suitable for my audience. I realized I had written some of the story at an almost adult level, so I rewrote much of it, ruthlessly cutting out many of my precious words--something very hard for writers to do! My ability to critique myself, cut and rewrite has improved after going through the editing process during the publication of TOS.

This process got my writing juices flowing again, resulting in some new ideas that added depth to the story and more suspense to the plot. Somehow, the problem section was no longer a problem now, and new ideas for the last half of the story got me excited about plunging into my work. I believe I have close to two-thirds of the story written now, and it seems possible that I may actually finish it this school year.

I know that many writers discipline themselves to write regularly every day, but I choose to fit my writing time into my schedule as my time varies. For me, writing doesn't come first; it comes after family and job--balanced with other responsibilities, commitments and life's frequent unexpected events. That may sound like heresy to some writers, but I am not a full-time writer. I am just barely a part-time writer! I can't follow someone else's formula--I have to find what works for me.

Never count your chickens before they actually hatch. Things do not always go as planned, and I'm sure this won't be the last time...the books that were supposedly "in the mail" to my publisher turned out to be not in the mail, not even printed. So then a last minute change of printer resulted in several more weeks of delay and lost opportunities to sell books at an event and on a trip, but they will actually arrive in a couple of days now.

Meanwhile, I have been distributing flyers and bookmarks and talking up my book. I've used my unplanned extra time to get over being sick, visit grandkids, make my Christmas plans, and work on another writing project. I hope to use my two-week vacation from my job at school to resume work on the sequel to The Orange Slipknot, which I haven't touched in months.

When my books arrive this week, I will spend that evening autographing and stuffing books into prepared mailers which I will take to the post office the next day. Hopefully all prepaid orders will arrive by Christmas! Then I will begin my new job of selling books. I have stores to visit and press releases to send out. I will need to devise a way to keep track of my business transactions. Writers must also become small business managers!

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity...scores of emails arranging last minute changes and details...many decisions to be made about ordering, printing, shipping, autographing, and delivering books. Every time I thought about updating my blog, I told myself, "...but not until I do this, this and that!" All these must be fit into a life already busy with my daily job, piano students, shopping, projects and responsibilities at home, grandchildren, and weekend activities such as house painting, horse activities, and a three-day trip to California to visit family. But in a few days my first box of books will arrive! I can hardly believe it.

If my box arrives on time, I will be selling books at a local pre-Christmas craft sale next weekend, along with the framed photos and cards I make with Bible verses on local photos I have taken. This week my spare time will be taken up with putting together my photos. The following week I will probably start visiting local stores and calling or emailing other stores and libraries. This weekend I have been printing up bookmarks and flyers I have designed. How could I ever have managed without email, Microsoft Word, and Adobe Photoshop? The computer is surely a marvelous tool, along with home printers, digital cameras, scanners and copy machines. How different things would have been if I had published my book ten or twelve years ago, before I entered the digital world.

One thing I have been trying to show in this blog is that writing books involves much more than just writing a good story. I am very glad that over the years, I have spent many hours reading up on book marketing. I had some idea of what to expect, but actually doing it is a real challenge.